A shill, also called a plant or a stooge, is a person who publicly helps or gives credibility to a person or organization without disclosing that they have a close relationship with the person or organization.
It pretty much covers the situation.
What close relationship? Are they working for us? No. Did we ask them to spread awareness? No. They are enthusiastic fans who happened to like AoD a lot. I'm sorry that it bothers you a LOT, but that's all there's to it.
1) They are part of you testing group which implies that you have off-forum conversations with them (mail, messenger and so on).
You can't be serious, right? I know playing detective is cool and all but what you're doing isn't healthy.
First, being a member of a testing group means access to a testing subforum where the testers can discuss things without spoiling others. Darth Roxor, Eyestabber, and the guys from RPG France had access to the same subforum. Creating that group was easier than giving them individual access. The group was created 2 weeks before DR release, so it's not some kinda long-term AoD promo operation you've busted. I don't need to have off-forum conversations with the testers.
Do you have problems reading?
I said "They are part of you testing group which implies that you have off-forum conversations with them (mail, messenger and so on)." and you reply was "
being a member of a testing group means access to a testing subforum where the testers can discuss things without spoiling others."
You have a communication tool with them that is private (non-transparent) and also not available to regular AoD players therefore technically my statement is correct.
Second, I've already explained why shilling doesn't work, so why the fuck would you think that I would want to recruit anyone to annoy you on the Codex of all places? I was one of the admins here, I have 25,000 posts, what makes you think I need anyone to promote the game here or elsewhere?
First, your are working with your personal assumptions which cannot be proven true or otherwise.
Seconds, according to the thread on your own forum, it seems that it worth spending time on shilling the game. Therefore allow me to be skeptic about the usefulness of this marketing method.
2) They used your forum to coordinate this kind of operation.
In fact in that thread Goral is spewing confidential information like this:
How the fuck does he know that the game is not selling too well?
Really? Confidential info? I post frequent sales update on the Codex, there's Steamspy, and then there's the number of reviews on Steam which directly corresponds to the number of copies sold.
I'm wrong about the confidential information regarding the game sales (the game was in EA state at that point). I apologize for that.
However I like how you ignore the fact that they used your forum to plan their shilling operation.
3) You were part of this operation - with intention or without intention.
He down-voted all the negative reviews regardless of the fact that they made sense or not. And you thanked him.
I thanked him for writing a positive review, which is a common courtesy. I've never asked anyone to downvote negative reviews (in fact the second top review right now is a negative one). When he asked what else he can do, instead of asking him to post on every forum he could find, I thanked him politely because we neither do it nor need it.
I would believed you if you stated *THEN* in that post that it's not alright to down-vote negative reviews without a reason however now you are just lying.
Look, I'm not detective and I'm sure as hell I did not want to spend half a day on this crap but you show a surprisingly lack of ethic in regard to this topic.
The differences between their operation and a proper
astroturfing operation are these: you didn't plan for it, you didn't coordinate with them and you did not pay them. However everything else is the same.
In the book
Grassroots for Hire: Public Affairs Consultants in American Democracy, Edward Walker defines "astroturfing" as public participation that is perceived as heavily incentivized, as fraudulent (claims are attributed to those who did not make such statements), or as an elite campaign masquerading as a mass movement. Although not all campaigns by professional grassroots
lobbying consultants meet this definition, the book finds that the elite-sponsored grassroots campaigns often fail when they are not transparent about their sources of sponsorship and/or fail to develop partnerships with constituencies that have an independent interest in the issue. Walker highlights the case of
Working Families for Wal-Mart, in which the campaign's lack of transparency led to its demise.
A study published in the
Journal of Business Ethics examined the effects of websites operated by front groups on students. It found that astroturfing was effective at creating uncertainty and lowering trust about claims, thereby changing perceptions that tend to favor the business interests behind the astroturfing effort.
The New York Times reported that "consumer" reviews are more effective, because "they purport to be testimonials of real people, even though some are bought and sold just like everything else on the commercial Internet." Some organizations feel their business is threatened by negative comments, so they may engage in astroturfing to drown them out. Online comments from astroturfing employees can also sway the discussion through the influence of groupthink.
My recommendation for you is to forget about this thread because it was not about you or your game. It was about two or more imbeciles which are shilling for free.
I've updated the thread name to be make it more clear that is not about AoD.
If you continue defending them then I would say that you have ulterior motive which will not reflect nicely on your reputation.